Cameco’s Chief Financial Officer says COVID-19 has been a big issue for uranium mines, not just in northern Saskatchewan where the Cigar Lake mine has been temporarily suspended.

Grant Isaac says one of the mines in Kazakhstan has a 20 per cent infection rate.
To make sure that didn’t happen in Cigar Lake, production was originally shut down last March, then re-opened in September only to be suspended again in December.  In both suspensions, the decisions weren’t because of their lack of safety regulations, Isaac says.  There were surrounding communities on the no-fly list so workers couldn’t be transported in, and if anyone presented with symptoms it would trigger a quarantine.

Isaac says, “We’re just not the kind of company that would operate in an E-S-G world that would operate under upset conditions.”  E-S-G means environmental, social and corporate governance.

He expects Cigar Lake will re-open in 2021, but can’t say when or at what rate it will happen.  The Saskatoon-based company will present its 2020 fourth quarter results on February 10th.